November 11, 2024 • 60 mins
In the latest episode of Columbia House Party, hosts Jake Goldsbie and Blake Murphy discuss Romance Is Boring, the 2010 album from Los Campesinos! Yes, it's a run of a lot of sports references sprinkled into your emo/indie-pop. You knew what you signed up for. Find out more about why Romance Is Boring is such an important transition album for the band, which track stands out as an influential piece of the 2010s emo revival, and how Los Campesinos! became the rare band listed among both hosts' favorites on this week's podcast.
Sick of hearing all the ads? Subscribe to Soda Premium on Apple Podcasts to get rid of them!Follow @ColumbiaHP on X!
While you're there say hello to @BlakeMurphyODC and @JGoldsbie.If merch is your thing, be sure to check out the store: http://bit.ly/chpmerchOr reach out to the show and say hey: podcast@columbiahouseparty.com
If you enjoyed today’s show, please rate Columbia House Party 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts.
See you next week for another episode of CHP.
Sick of hearing all the ads? Subscribe to Soda Premium on Apple Podcasts to get rid of them!Follow @ColumbiaHP on X!
While you're there say hello to @BlakeMurphyODC and @JGoldsbie.If merch is your thing, be sure to check out the store: http://bit.ly/chpmerchOr reach out to the show and say hey: podcast@columbiahouseparty.com
If you enjoyed today’s show, please rate Columbia House Party 5-Stars on Apple Podcasts.
See you next week for another episode of CHP.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Get Ready for podcast I got no regret. Right now,
the air is so cold and null. Let me go
in a room. I want to turn on the latest
episode of Columbia House Party. Jake, what's up, man?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm really happy you did the get Ready for podcasts.
That's great stuff. This is what people have come to
expect from us.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Look, I'm doing asmr over on my Raptors podcast. I'm
doing weird like nineteen fifties Pa work over on this one.
It's good. I speak exactly exactly what the raptor me
doing A half committing to doing bits and doing them
not that well.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Look, you know it's the only thing better than half
committing to doing bits is full committing to doing bits.
I meant to say it the other way around. I
had to say, I think better than full committing is
half committing.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yes, you were of the mind that you know, while
the dogma is that you can't half ask two things
and you should full ass one thing. You are happy
to partial ass several things.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Quarter asked two things. Who's gonna stop you?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
There you go, Jake, What do you have for us today?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So today I'm gonna take you back to two thousand
and three I was on vacation with my parents as
I was a child, and I always like to put
music together, like before a vacation trip. It was always like,
let's get a bunch of music to listen to for
the car rides. And I didn't listen to blink Witty
(01:53):
Too in a long time at this point, of course,
a long time back then is like two years. And
so I popped the CD in. I was like, okay,
I'll give it a try, and then I got really
like self conscious listening to it. So I was like,
wait a minute, does the new blink Way two CD
actually rule? And it turns out that young Jake was right.
(02:14):
The new blink Way Too CD did rule. And that's
what we're talking about today. We're talking about I don't
know whether it's called self titled or untitled. Frankly, I
don't want to know, but we're talking today about blink
Way two's two thousand and three self slash untitled.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Six bottles went down the train, one hours wasted time.
I'd ask if you feel the same, still pushing that
chance to try your breath in this cool room, chill
wong hear the both side to side you speaking timestamps
still and he's shining.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Walk right on by.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
You at me forever. I buy you out, you come forever,
like buy you out.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
You have it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
My FI.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You don't get very So to give you an idea
of just how rooted in this podcast, Blink is. You know,
we talked on bonus episodes about this podcast origin story
(04:07):
and how one of the first shows Jake and I
went to was us getting quite drunk at one of
the first Blink shows with Matt Skiba. It goes beyond
that right before we came on here to record this.
And this won't date it because there's no way you're
going to remember at which point Travis Barker posted this.
But Travis Barker does the same thing I do, and
(04:29):
he screenshots what song he's listening to on his phone
and posted in his Instagram story, even though unlike the
Spotify embds, you can't click through to it. He just
wants you to know what he's listening to, and he's
listening to the Postal Service. So Travis Barker, God, I
hope you're hearing this come on the podcast is. I
am shocked that at this point, with how much work
(04:49):
he's doing with Machine Ga Kelly, and just outside of
the pop punk sphere in general. The songs he posts
are so still in the Columbia House Pardy Wheelhouse. Travis
still has elite taste.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's because everyone forgets the Travis is SKA. I pushed
behind the curtain a little bit. I pushed real hard
for one of the Blink episodes this year to be
the Aquabats and Blake said no, But I think Travis, Travis,
if you're listening, come on the pod and talk about
the Aquabats.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I didn't say no, I just said.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Can imagine. Can you imagine if like we got Travis Barker,
like literally Travis Barker and we made to talk about
We didn't talk about the fucking Aquabats.
Speaker 6 (05:31):
Man.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
But Travis is the one who first pushed Tom toward
this different sound with this album, because it was It
wasn't like Tom came up in the post hardcore scene
and really liked it. It was Travis listening to all
this stuff and Tom being like, Hey, what is that ship?
That shit rules? And then Tom deciding he wanted to
(05:52):
go down this for the road. Jake, you teed up
your connection to this a little bit. On on the
family road trip and you know, instantly liking this. I
was on the other side of this where in high
school at the time. I remember being a little bit disappointed,
expecting a more proper Blink pop punk album. And even
though I'd enjoyed Boxcar Racer, which came out between take
(06:14):
Off Your Pants a Jacket and the untitled you know,
I as just like a teenage Blink fan wanted more
like American pie style Blink. Now I see it in
retrospect as such a first of all logical artistic extension
of what they'd been. And now, you know, we talked
about this when we did take Off Your Pants to
Jacket and we ranked Blink albums at the end. It's
(06:36):
my favorite Blink album, both by merit and in terms
of it's just the most interesting with respect to the
band's history, their growth and really, you know, the what
ifs of what if they kind of stuck down this
road and stuck together beyond this? What could what could
have been? And that's something we talked a lot about,
you know, and take Off Your Pants a Jacket and
plus forty four. I'm sure it'll come up again, But yeah, Jake,
(06:57):
I was on the wrong side of history initially, but
I come around to agreeing with you that this is
the Blink album that holds up the best and is
the most interesting. Beyond that you wanted to do this
one last year when we got here. Why is this
one so fascinating for you?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I mean a lot of the same reasons that you
just point out, Like it's by far and like not
even close. It's my favorite of the Blink albums. I
also think like it is the best of them. I
know we don't like to toss around sort of best
versus favorite so much, but I think this is one
(07:34):
of those sort of occurrences where I feel comfortable doing so.
I also think it's just I think it's really interesting,
both for reasons we talked about last year and for
reasons we were going to talk about today, especially in
regards to the dynamic between Mark and Tom and sort
of last year we talked a lot about whether or
not they need each other to make their best work,
(07:57):
in which I think we both agree that they do.
But I think this album's really interesting, and especially sort
of what came just after this album, both as a
live band and sort of where they would go in
their careers in that not only do I think they
need each other, but I think them having sort of
unspoken or maybe spoken tension between each other and trying
(08:20):
to one up each other really like pushes them to
do their best work. That's not so much on this
album itself, but more so on what happened around this
album and after this album came out, before they broke
up for the first time. And I think it's a
really interesting album from a band that I don't think
it's enough credit for being an interesting band, which is
(08:43):
also sort of the influence to making this album in
the first place. And I think this is an album
that hugely influenced all of pop punk and emo in
ways it does get credit for today, but maybe wasn't
sort of a rest as much at the time because
of what pop punk and emo were in two thousand
(09:04):
and three.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, I feel like the general reception to it initially
was my response to it, which was, where are my
dick and fart jokes?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And I D play this.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I can't play this at a kegger. So we're going
to talk about that. We're going to dive into the
album and the kind of sonic change for Blink one
A two and a little later, we're going to talk
about that influence that kind of sticks around every band
that's even relatively pop punk ad Jason owes at least
a little something to the Blank one A two style
bands that made it more commercially viable. But this is
(09:36):
the album I think where you start to where you
can still trace, you know, in the sound and in
the spirit, you can still trace some of today's bands
back to Blink. We're going to talk about the untitled
Blink one A two album after this.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket hit number one in
two thousand and one and broke the band to a
new level of stardom, especially the two singles, which were
First Date and The Rock Show. Tom told music Radar
that he felt limited by the band's record label and
also the band itself, which is what caused him to
strike out and do the Box Carracer project in the
first place. He said, I was getting kind of bummed
(10:24):
out in the studio with Blink. It's probably my fault
because I never said it, but I just wanted to
get in there and try things out, but you feel
like you can't because the band is paying for studio time.
It's almost like you have a canvas and all these paints,
but somebody says, no, don't touch those. Now we've got
to get the blue on the canvas. And you say,
but there's red, and they say, no, get the blue done.
Maybe they'll be time for red later. The band had
(10:45):
a tour scheduled for the fall of two thousand and one,
which was canceled by nine to eleven, and then they
canceled the tour a second time after DeLong herniated a
disc in his back, and that time off led to
his box Car Racer project. But we will discuss that
more next week. Mark Hoppis said in a Reddit ama
that he felt hurt by his lack of inclusion with
box Car. He also told Krang in two thousand and three,
(11:08):
at the end of two thousand and one, it felt
like Blink Oney too had broken up. It wasn't spoken about,
but it felt over. After this, Travis Barker would go
on to play with The Transplants two thousand and two.
Blink did play the Pop Disaster Tour that year with
Green Day, but they were sort of going in their
own little directions.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
By the way, you want to talk about potential episodes
for a third Blink Ark with Blink adjacencies. If you're
going to do aquabats and force that in there and
lose half our audience, I'm going to come in and
lose the rest of the audience with the transplants episode.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
You're not only going to lose the rest of the audience,
You're me.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, Diamonds and Guns, baby boy, I.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Don't like that album. In that interview with Kerrang, Mark
Hoppus also said that the two thousand and two tour
was an uncomfortable time in the band, but said that
the band had hundreds of discussions about their careers and
everything and seemingly moved on. In Travis bar Worker's autobiography,
Can I Say, he said that he felt the dynamics
and the band had changed due to Hoppus and DeLong
(12:06):
getting married, saying blank way two were no longer just
three inseparable guys who were touring together, and he also
said that his dating Shan a Moechler at the time,
and their tabloid attention caused a lot of awkwardness in
the group.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
To be clear, Mark and Tom got married to their partners,
not to each other. There was a yes of a
clear sentence structure. There just to be they would divorce eventually,
but they weren't actually married to each other.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That's very true. That's a good note Blake. Talking to
MTV in two thousand and two regarding making their next album,
Mark Hoppus said that we always had these ideas for
things we wanted to do, but we never spent time
in the studio to explore them. This time, we're going
to the studio with a bunch of new approaches, and
I think this will be one of those albums that
(12:52):
people will either love or throw in the trash and
spit on. We want to do something really dynamic. We
wanted to try different effects in the studio, try different instruments,
try different sounds, different arrangements on songs. Before we got
one guitar sound that we changed a little bit through
the record. This time we want to try a whole
different setup for each song. And in Joe Schumann's book
(13:13):
Blink One, Tity Two, The Band, The Breakdown and the Return,
assistant engineer for this record, Sam Bucas said once the
door was opened by Tom and Travis with Boxcar, Mark
started to be more on board with that concept. He
was also more flexible, and the next Blink album was
able to be a pretty big departure from the previous two,
which I think is kind of an interesting way to
(13:33):
look at it, especially from Mark's perspective. And I hadn't
really thought of it this way, even though obviously it's
what happened. But how the first three four depending on
what five, depending on how you count which blank albums
are actually albums or not, they are really simple albums,
(13:54):
like instrumentation. Why there's not like really keyboards even for over,
there's not even that many guitar over dubs.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
No, it's really just Travis is the only thing that's
playing like above, yeah, a basic station.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Right, Yeah. And I think we talked this last year,
like it's not a coincidence. The band sort of elevated
in terms of success once Travis joined the band to
make it a little more unique and interesting. But even like,
there's only so much Travis could do until they got
to this point to sort of they all brought new things,
which I think is kind of interesting for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And I know we have a bunch of music clips
that we want to play from this album. So I'm
just gonna I'm gonna jump ahead of you here and say,
you know, I think maybe it was a realization for
Mark two that like, not only could the band expand
a little bit more, but he could too. And obviously,
you know the dynamic has has been in at the
(14:51):
time to hear interviews and then in retrospect listening to
the music that you know, Tom needed Mark to rain
him in a little bit, and Mark needed Tom to
push him outside of his comfort zone a little uh.
And I think you know one of the earlier successes
that they had in going down this road was the
song Go, which does give Mark a little bit of
a little bit of chance to kind of find his
group in this sound.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
How we of the g probatunity look aside the back
in eighty three, I.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Ready the car, said the man side, So the look
up read my mother's side down dow dow Dow.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Love getting the car.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And that's drive away. She said, I'm sorry, Mark, but
there's a wet star came upon her and broke back inside.
Hit a record hot and the dow dow Dow got yeah.
(16:16):
I completely agree with that, and I think I chose
Go both as is the first song we were going
to talk about today from a chronological perspective, but also,
even though it comes near the end of the record,
probably It and Feeling This are the songs that feel
most in place with sort of the take off your
pants era of Blink, which I think is a good
(16:37):
place to start. That was also the first song that
they would debut from this record. They played a few
shows in early two thousand and three in the summer
to test to not really test, I can't really say
road test stuff. They only played a couple songs from
this record, but that was the first one which they
played at their first show the year at a festival
in Sarnia, Ontario. Wow, so there you go.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Was it Beyfest?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It was Bayfest Rogers Sarnia Bayfest in July two.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I went to Bayfest. I think I've shared this on
the pod before. I went to Bayfest with my dad
and brothers the year that Nickelback had won.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
That's right. Well, that's where they premiered Go, which is
kind of funny. I guess sad.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I wasn't there for that one. All I got to
hear was how You Remind Me or whatever. The Nickelback
song was off the first album.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Ah, that's too bad. Oh bad Anyway, the band began
working on this record in January of two thousand and three.
They rented a luxury home in San Diego, planning to
record the entire album there. They had a different approach
to this record. Previously, they wrote and demoed songs in
the studio, one instrument a time, but for this album
(17:43):
they approached each song as a whole and as a band,
which is interesting considering how the next Blank record would
be recorded, but we'll talk about that a little later.
This is also the first time they felt they had
that freedom and time in the studio that Mark and
Tom were sort of alluding to in the press before
this record. Recently, Mark appeared on Jim Adkins of Jimmy
(18:03):
World's podcast Passed Through Frequencies, and he said, when we
first started out, obviously we couldn't afford studio times. We
had to have everything written and planned out before we
went into the studio. We did that for Cheshure Cat
Dude Ranch, pretty much Enemy of the State and Take
Off Your Pants and jacket. When we got the untitled record,
we were like, we don't have any songs written. We
just want to go into the studio and start throwing
(18:24):
ideas around and catching things and seeing what happens. Happus
says that it was a great education for the three
of us. We really spent time breaking songs down, making
things weird, and agonizing over every single element of a song.
They would stay in that house in San Diego until
April two thousand and three, when the owners eventually kicked
them out. They would then move to Rolling Thunder Studios
(18:46):
before leaving for the summer tour, the first up of
which was the aforementioned Bayfest. Travis also left the band
in the spring to go tour at the Transplants, but
he left them a bunch of drum tracks for them
to use while he was gone.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, this comes up. This is gonna come up every
time we do a Blink episode or a Blink Relate episode.
Is that like Travis just comes in and does all
his parts in like a day or two while everyone else,
Like every project Travis is in, He's like, no, I
get it, here's the drums. It's it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I'm sure it wasn't like this, but I have. It
makes a really funny image in my brain of Mark
and Tom like agonizing over every minute detail of this record,
which they did, and then Travis being like, yeah, I
did the drums in like three hours.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Here you go, and then just bounce out to go
to Yeah. The rest of this project is you guys
trying to keep catch up to me. So I'm just
going to drop the drums here and we'll go with it.
One of the things I find interesting, and maybe you
have some quotes about this or or just a reflection,
is this was the last album that Blink did with
Jerry Finn. But it's really interesting to me that they
(19:50):
were able to grow with Finn from Enema to take
Off your Pants a Jacket to box car to this.
In doing these episodes and talking to to friends in
the industry, it really seems like usually when you're trying
to make that jump and push yourself out of your
comfort zone, that's the time when a band might look
to change up who's producing and mixing with them, because
(20:10):
you get a different perspective, you get someone who's going
to challenge you differently. And I think it's you know,
it's obviously these this string of records they did with
Finn were so immensely successful. Obviously Finn has a you know,
such a lengthy list of great stuff he's worked one,
but it's a real testament to the dynamic between Finn
and the band and the trust that was there between
(20:31):
them to be able to try something this different with
the same producer and not just like there's almost no
point in this album where they fall back into old
Blink habits.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, And I think that's a credit to Finn, And
like how Finn's career sort of went, Like I don't
think it's a stretch to credit Jerry Finn with like
inventing or helping to invent the modern form of pop
punkin email, Like you just look at his discography and
how he went from starting with like Matthew Sweet and
Color Me Bad and then eventually started working with Penny
(21:06):
Wise and Rancid and Weezer and Green Day and Blink
and Alkaline Trio at MxPx and Smoking Popes and Rancid
and the Offspring. Like he just his hands are all
over this entire genre. And I think tracking his evolution
through the evolution of Blink is a good way to
(21:26):
track the evolution of the genre as well. And I
think a lot of that is credited to Finn.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, and I know Finn only has production credits on
a few of the songs were mixing, including Feeling This,
which I guess they had some trouble finishing.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Right Yeah. In that podcast with Jim Adkins, Mark said
that Feeling This was all was had, they had trouble
ending it, and it also was sort of part of
their evolution and education in the studio, Mark said that
the first single off of the record is a song
called Feeling This. At the end, this six part harmony
with different calls and responses, that was just a total
(22:03):
happy accident in the studio where we were getting to
the end of the song and composing it and trying
to figure it out the different sections and stuff. Our
engineer accidentally automated a fade and left off the vocals,
so all the music faded out and the vocals were
still doing the harmony thing, and we were like, that's
really cool. Let's expand on that. That could also be
why the band stayed in the studio for three months
(22:25):
longer than planned. This album ended up costing a million
dollars just to make, which Hoppus told Adkins is just
ridiculous now, but that is also the benefit of recording
with someone like Travis Barker, as we were sort of
alluding to before. In that Kerrang interview in two thousand
and three, Mark Hoppus said that Travis was like, don't
(22:47):
think of this as the next blank Whatity two record.
Think of this as the first blank Whitey two record.
So we had this mindset that we weren't going to
second guess ourselves or worry if people were going to
accept it or if it sounds like blank whitey too.
If it was an idea that we wanted to pursue,
we were gonna pursue it. And we tried out all
these different ideas and it was like a musical laboratory.
And I think that Travis is the right guy. Like
(23:10):
obviously there's lots of sort of electronic drum fills on
this record, even just the intro drums on Feeling this
with the effects on them is different than any other
Blink song. And when we talked last year about sort
of Travis's hip hop career and aspirations, him incorporating that
into this record, I think really is what started to
(23:33):
push it. Sort of. I don't know if this is
what started them experimenting the studio, but it wouldn't surprise
me if it was.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, for sure, and it almost comes off where like
instead of coming at it from a hip hop background.
And obviously there are a few different influences pulling them here,
like Tom's post hardcore. Obviously some cure influences, but it
almost gives like some on some of these songs, Travis
almost has like a jazz vibe to his produssion. Now
you made the bold decision to not put a clip
of Feeling This or I Miss You into our plan here.
(24:03):
Feeling This, by the way, which was not only the
lead singer but also released on the Madden in two
thousand and four soundtrack under the title Action Action, which
was a big a big twist when you got the
actual album, or sorry, even before the album when Feeling
This got released as a single under the name Feeling This.
In between Feeling This and I Miss You, though, is
a song that is perhaps a statement of intense Jake,
(24:28):
as you framed it, this is obvious.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Again I think you usually again before we give up
and move on empty tenor we starm where we have
it hold on and.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
One of my favorite tracks on the album, Jake, take
us into more of what you mean by this being
a statement of intents of sorts because it did. It
is sandwiched between the two really big singles, uh to
start off the album, and you know how I feel
about album structure and that you bat your best player second.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, I meant to the same intent because I feel like,
sort of as I said earlier, feeling this. I like
feeling this fine. The reason I didn't put Feeling This
or I Miss You in this episode is because everyone
knows those songs are right. If you're listening to this
like it's it's Blink. That's not like some obscure band,
it's like, check out their single, especially for I Miss You.
But we'll talk about that one in a minute. I've
(26:08):
said obvious to statement intent because it is track two
and feeling this to me, even though there is more
sort of studio experimentation in the song, I don't think
it's that far off from the previous Blink sound like
maybe it's a logical next step, but it's not as
far experimentation as they would go on this record.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Right like it would be it would be out of
place on Dude Ranch, but not too out of place
on take Off Your Pants.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
A Jacket exactly. And then with Obvious coming in right after,
which is a completely different sound for the band. I
think it's sort of like a indication that they weren't
your Papa's blank went too, so to speak. I also
think Obvious is kind of a funny song for me
because it's also one of my favorite songs on the album.
Yet I also think it sounds exactly like Boxcar Racer,
(26:55):
which I don't really like. Uh So, I think that's odd,
but we'll talk with that next week.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Anyway, Obvious was sort of, as I said, their statement
of intent to make in their mature record. In quotes
in the liner notes of the album, Travis wrote that
Obvious was a really dark song on the album. We
were thinking failure meets led Zeppelin meets the Police. I
love the verses in this song. And then regarding this
(27:22):
notion that they were making their mature record, the band
actually actively fought against that. Tom DeLong told Kerrang the
worst thing in the world that could happen is people
think we're trying to make some big, bold statement. That's
why we try to say it's not self titled. It's
just untitled. We don't want to label it with anything.
We didn't want to label it with a joke title
(27:42):
that people might expect. We didn't want to label it
with some serious phrase that the whole record would have
to relate to. We left it untitled so it would
speak for itself. And Happus followed that up, talking to
Spin saying, when we did the untitled record, we didn't
feel like putting joke stuff on it, so we didn't.
It wasn't really a deliberation or real introspective thing, like
are we going to joke on this one? Are we
(28:03):
not going to joke on this one? We just didn't
feel like it on this one, so we didn't. And
then DeLong furthered that up talking to Blender saying, some
of our fans were probably like, fuck, maybe they should
just stop joking so people can hear why I like
this band and I think this record is going to
help those kids out. And that was basically my attitude
to this record when it came out. I was kind
of like not that. I was like, you know, I
(28:26):
was moving on to real mature acts, like real big
fish at this time.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Look, I was just pivoting out of Disturbed. So even
take off your Pants a Jacket Era by two was
a very big maturing of my my palette coming off
of Down with the Sickness and stupefun I.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Think like it's funny in retrospect because of sort of
a lot of the SKA music I was listening to,
which like not all of it, like a lot of
it isn't what I would call mature music for two thousand.
I also, I was like fourteen or fifteen when this
came out, so you know, not doing my heavy maturing yet.
But I do remember thinking at the time, like I
(29:09):
am getting kind of tired with like the fuck of
Dogs songs and the like weird like their stage banter
I thought was getting really exacted, Like I always thought
the whole like whatever is like seventy minutes of stage
band wherever the fuck it is on the Mark, Tom
and Travis show. I was just like, I don't think
I need this in my life.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah, it's a lot. So there is I mean, the maturing,
Like they can say that they didn't want to do
this more mature album, but I definitely think there's a
realization here that like, hey, we're in our thirties and
we're married now, and yeah, obviously it's still it's still
a very angsty album, and it still does have the
odd line that is not jokey, but just like okay,
(29:49):
you're songwriting. It hasn't gone all the way there yet,
but I do think that there's like they did try
to make that pivot, and I think they wrote with
a more like broadly appeal emotionality and empathy where it's like,
you know, yes, their first couple albums were okay, your
your high school love issues and then your college love issues,
and this one maybe isn't even about you know, love
(30:11):
issues in as many places as it is just kind
of the world generally. I wouldn't go so far as
to say it's, you know, a concept album about the
end of the world, like like someone thinks Boxcar Racer is.
But you know, I do think that that maturity is there,
and I think, you know that I don't want to
look we all would have grown up and our music
(30:33):
tastes would have changed. But so I don't want to
say that like Blink kind of dragged some of its
fans with them, whereas otherwise there could have been a
level of arrested development had they, you know, put out
the same kind of thing again. But Jake, if it
helped pull you out of ska. Then it's it was
obviously for the best because you had a little bit
of SKA home syndrome there, did you not? Christ Yeah, sorry, man,
(30:57):
I had no way to work if I seen that
song that this is Stockholm syndrome. I'm sorry, rough place.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Job, stock can't.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Stop, lacks, can't.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Shock, skips show tell us.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
That an all time drumming on the steering wheel at
a red light song?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
For sure. Yeah, I think that song is I don't
want to call any of this music weird or experimental
because it's not. But it is for Blink at the time.
But I think that Sockham Syndrome to me is sort
of the most different I guess song on this record
right for Blink and where they were. It's also funny
(33:07):
to me that they had this whole thing about we
didn't want to make a statement, We don't want to
be named as our mature record. But the way Tom
talks about his own music always it's impossible to like
divorce the two like. He describes this song as a
beginning with an elderly woman reciting a letter Hoppus's grandfather
(33:29):
wrote his wife while fighting in World War two real, sincere,
genuine letters from the worst war in history. So we
created this really sad soundtrack beyond the letters, and then
it goes into the most aggressive punk rock anthem you've
ever heard. And like, I love Tom's so easy to
make fun of, and like, I get it, but I
love listening to Tom DeLong talk about himself because it's
(33:52):
the funniest thing in the world to me, and it's
like usually also kind of accurate, even like we should
all have the confidence of Tom Along talking about his
own music. Is I think, how I look at it.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, I would, I would love that kind of confidence.
And look, I mean he was The weird thing about
it is is that, like you know, he's not the
either he's not the most self aware of how he
comes off in interviews or he just doesn't care. But
you go back and like you prep for an episode
like this, and you prep for an episode like box
Car Racer, and Tom was right, like he could like
(34:24):
history looks good on the things Tom was saying about
changing their sound and pushing themselves as artists and stuff.
And you know whether whether or not he's dialing up
kind of the rhetoric around those changes a little too
high because still blinkrent a two album. Like he was
right and this is a big step forward for them
and it is better, and so like we can joke
(34:46):
and it's easy to make fun and it's really easy
to pick on Tom for you know, the modern day
UFO stuff. But he was right about that too, So yeah,
that's true that he he uh.
Speaker 5 (34:56):
This is.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Tom DeLong History's greatest here a couple of years from
now when the Aliens take over and start going back
to listen to our old music and the untitled album
and boxcar stand out above the rest. Tom was right.
That's that's a big takeaway here.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I don't mean to keep teasing later moments in the episode,
but there's an all time Tom talking about his own
work quote coming up in a yeahs.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Before we get to that, we should probably talk about
I Miss You, which you kind of intentionally decided not
to put here because everyone knows I Miss You obviously.
It's kind of become this like that song is almost
like we got the mailbag question early on in the
Patreon Bonus episodes, like what do you think people think
(35:41):
of when they hear the word emo and don't really
know what it is? And it's like it's it's the
aesthetic of that video and like Tom's Tom voice, yea,
even though that's a good song and obviously again this
album is is good, and like our answers for that
were like something corporate and simple plan like it's not
blank Winny too, but that's kind of what I Miss You.
It was just like it's pretty ubiquitous, and instead, I
(36:06):
know you wanted to talk about the Cure influence here,
which is obvious in that video is aesthetic and then
of course much more direct on a song later in
the album.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, Like I agree with you. I think if someone
said what is emo, it's Tom with his bangs over
his face singing the voice inside my head verse. But
I do think I Miss You is an interesting song,
even if I don't like it all that much, just
because I do think it represents such a big step
forward for them as a band and also influences the
next song we're going to talk about about I Miss You.
(36:38):
Tom said that I'm a really big fan of the
Cure and one day i was listening to the song
the love Cats, and I love the idea of using
a stand up bass guitar in jazz brushes. So what
we end up doing was writing a song that was
all acoustic. Once the lyrics starts singing about a spider
eating the insides of a bug. I think people take
that and go, maybe it's not about their families, and
it talks about celebrating Halloween on Christmas and all these
(36:59):
different dark kind of things. The song's more about the
vulnerability and the kind of heart wrenching pain you feel
when you're in love and when you're a guy and
you're trying to tell a girl don't waste your time
coming and talk to me, because in my head, at
least you probably already gave up on me a long
time ago, which is just a boy Tom. I don't
know about that I got He's right, that is when
(37:19):
we were when I was fifteen, or that song, that's
what it is. But like Wolf anyway, the song I
want to talk about is a song that I cannot
believe exists for a lot of reasons, and that song,
both instrumentally and musically, and for the fact that who
literally sings on the song should not exist on a
blank twenty two record anyway. The song I'm gonna talk
(37:41):
about is all of this, which features literally Robert Smith
on literally Robert Smith.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
This side side of my head. I'll just go show
I mean I love changes me oh again when you.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
For this want to change just said to.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Tell the world's into I know that my wop.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
But I'm always wanting.
Speaker 6 (38:21):
Giuse me, only come on and use me, us me,
come use me, Which is all I mean.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
That is all I dream, which is all I always wanted,
Which is all I mean, is all dream, which is
all I always wanted.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
A way to fill, to shake the sky, and another
night with always wanting you, another night with her always want.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
H Oh, that's a great track.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
It's a great song, one of like I think, genuinely
one of my favorite Blankway two songs. And also literally
Robert Smith is on it, which is insane to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
The Cure influence all over for a couple of songs
on this one, but specifically that one. All of this.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Ah yeah. So this song came about by Hoppus said
explained that we're all huge fans of the Cure. Having
Robert Smith collaborate on a track is a total dream
come true for us. We recorded the song in a
rather unconventional manner. Travis recorded the kick and snare together,
and then went back and overdubbed the high hat, then
overdubbed the ride symbol, then overdubbed the ribbon crasher. Tom
(40:26):
went in and recorded the acoustic guitars and the electrics.
Then I went in and recorded the bass using a
new discovery for this album, which is a nineteen sixty
three Fender Base six. It's exactly like guitar and that
it has six strings, but it's tuned an octave lower.
It wasn't amplified. We plugged it directly into the board.
Then Roger came in and added the keyboards. Tom sang
lead on the first two lines for the chorus, and
(40:48):
then we sent that track over to Robert in England.
He recorded his vocals there and sent the track back
to us. We added in the drum fills and harmonies
and added mellotron. The song was recorded in four different
studios on two different concent and and it's one of
the best on the record. Smith recorded his parts in England,
as Mark said, but he also gave the group some
advice because they were worried about this song. Both I
(41:10):
think of the fact that they were literally asking Robert
Smith to be on their song, and we know how
huge Cure fans they are, especially Mark considering half of
fucking California's about it.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
And he also sent them back advice because they I
guess they had kind of included saying like we were
nervous about what a non humor Blink twenty two album
would be and how they received. DeLong told Billboard it
was a dream come true. We sent them the music
to him in England of what was on the record,
and I didn't think he would be interested in contributing,
only because who knew what his perception was of our
(41:43):
band in the past. But what he said was, nobody
knows what kind of songs you're going to write in
the future, and nobody knows the full potential of any band.
And I really like the music you sent me, and
he really wanted to do it, and it was just amazing.
I also think all this is really interesting, just briefly
in that I think it sounds a lot like a
lot of the music The Cure would make for their
(42:04):
record that came out in two thousand and four, which
is also a self titled record. I'm not going to
say that Blank waited to influence the Cure's next album,
but it'll give to that. It does sound very similar
to a couple songs on that record, which I really like.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
But if there's anyone who knows how to navigate getting
a little tired of what your sound was or what
expectations were for you and speaking it effectively right your
new desires that, you know, the advice from Robert Smith
is probably pretty helpful. We are not wrapping the album
here because, like this album, there is one more single
(42:40):
to discuss that comes just a little later. So we're
going to talk about that last single and the lasting
influence of this album on the Cure and a bunch
more bands after this. All right, Jake, So this album
(43:07):
came out I sometimes mix it up with when Madden
came out, which was the summer of two thousand and three.
Feeling This then came out in October two thousand and three,
the album dropped in mid November, and then a whole
year later this end, and this has to be at
the end of the run where albums could release singles
over the course of a whole year without kind of
(43:28):
losing you know, We've done some albums when we go
back to the nineties on this episode or even the
early two thousands, and there's like six singles spread out
over two years. This has to be toward the end
of where you could pull that off. But blank win
A to two, snuck one more singles. So when I
feeling this, I miss you Down and then six months
after Down, and a year after the album had been released,
(43:50):
hit us with one more called Always Did You Come Across?
Speaker 5 (43:54):
Why?
Speaker 1 (43:55):
This was like way later? What the goal was here
with the super late single?
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Like just why was it so long? Between three and
four they were just pumping them out. They actually wanted
to have five singles on this record. They considered putting
out all of this as the fifth single.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Because of band tension and breaking up and everything that
was going on near the end of two thousand and
four or two thousand and five of the band, it
just never came to fruition. DeLong told MTV when Always
came out, he said, it's the first time we've ever
had four singles. This album is like the little engine
that could. We even talked about a fifth single. We've
never done this before. It is kind of weird that
(44:33):
we're still around. It's kind of a love song. It's
kind of got an eighties thing. It's not a dance song,
but if you were to dance to it, you'd look
like you were writ out of nineteen eighty five. Again,
I love how Tom DeLong talks and the quote that
I was alluding to earlier that as an all time
Tom DeLong talking about his own music quote about the
song Always, which I really like. But keep in mind
it is the Blink one D two song Always. Tom
(44:55):
told MTV News it's going to change people's lives and
might actually change the world forever.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
All right, anyway, before we comment on that this is
the song Always, I've been.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Here before a few times and quite aware you're dying.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
And your hands good movies, and I'll take you if
you me.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
Dying.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
This is another instance of Tom also when explaining the song,
just like basically saying the lyrics the song is about
wanting to hold the chick, kiss sir in touch and
taster and feeler and all these great adjectives. I agree
with his part of that interview where he says it's
a spectacular song. I do really like that song. Don't
know though, that it changed the world forever.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
I like that he's saying it's going to change people's lives.
When the album had been out for a year, like
people had heard the song already, the album sold really well.
I do really like that song. I think it's one
of my favorite songs on this album, and I think
it's one of their one. Like Blink or Not a
band I would say are a great singles band other
(47:36):
than the Dude Ranch singles. I would say their singles
are actively their worst songs, but not that one. I
think that one's a great song and a great single.
Joe Schuman in his book also point out the guitar
riff is very similar to the Only One song Another Girl,
Another Planet, which Blink would actually cover, and Schuman also
called it the thickest Blink track of all time. Consequence
(47:57):
of Sound in twenty fifteen would say it's the fifth
best Blink song and called it by far and away,
the best song on Untitled.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
It's also one of I guess, you know, to kind
of cap up that talk about the end of the
era where you could spread singles out that long. It
didn't chart very well, but it was a huge success
as a music video. If you remember that like three
panel music video where everything was just out of up
to today has almost eighty six million YouTube views. There
(48:28):
you go pretty successful.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
So anyway, eventually this album came out. The band they
had a little trouble meeting their deadline because they were
so obsessive over every little detail. DeLong said. The final
days of mixing were crazy stressful, and he told MTV
that they had literally hours to turn in the album
to have it come out on time. The final mixes
(48:51):
for the album were still being judged and worked on
by the band the literal night before the album was
sent to the pressing plant. So that's the kind of
thing how it was going. Came out on November eighteenth,
two thousand and three, and it was oh decently received.
It got four stars of Rolling Stone, five oft a
five from Spotnik, ninety one percent from Spin, an a
(49:13):
minus Entertainment Weekly, a favorable review in The av Club,
a four and a half out of five from All Press,
and a four to five from All Music. It has
a seventy one on Metacritic currently and was named Rolling
Stone's Best of two thousand and three list. I think
the reception for this album, they were kind of in
a no win situation either they were going to get
the like Blink trying really hard to mature thing, or
(49:37):
they were gonna get the where's the jokes thing? So
I kind of think they were on a no win,
which I kind of get. Regarding the more mature sound
that was actually positively received, Tim Nubound of Soulshine Magazine said,
Blink show that they can retain their infectious and endearing
qualities while recording music of a more thoughtful caliber, and
(50:00):
Katucci in The Village Voice compared it to Green Day's Warning,
saying that, let it be noted, however, that Warning searches
for subject matter, while Blank one two searches for meaning,
and I think that's an interesting comparison. Considering the next
year Green Day would release American Idiot. It sold well,
though debuted at number three on the Billboard two hundred,
selling three hundred and thirteen thousand copies in its first week.
(50:22):
It actually charted the highest in Canada, where it debuted
at number one, because we know what the fuck is up.
It was certified platinum in two thousand and four in
the States and to date has sold two point two
million copies in the United States and seven million worldwide.
It went double platinum in Canada and Australia and also
platinum in the UK. They would tour this album first
(50:45):
on the unfortunately named Dolla Bill Tour, but it was
named that way because they played small clubs and sold
tickets for one dollar. I'm only noting this tour because
the final date of that tour took place at the
Phoenix Concert Theater here in Toronto, and the opening band
was literally my Chemical Romance And seeing two thousand and
(51:06):
four MCR open for two thousand and four Blink at
the Phoenix would have been fucking awesome. So if anyone
is listening to this who was at that show, please
tweeted us and tell us about it, because I want
to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Yeah, and take us back there and let us be there.
Because the other thing with this album too, this is
kind of where they hit their stride as a live
show band too, where you know, Mark, Tom and Travis
show is what a Blink twenty to two show is like.
It's a lot of jokiness and they play the hits
and jake for your money. This is around the only
(51:39):
time that they were like an above average live band
in addition to just being a band that you love.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
Yeah, I'm a big live bootleg guy. In the high school,
I pretty much listened exclusively to Like Live and University
as well, So I love watching listening to live shows
on YouTube and shit now. And I think that my
theory with Blink and You're free to disagree is that
I don't think they've ever been a particularly good live band.
(52:09):
Like I find their Mark Tom and Travis era antics
kind of annoying, but that's just me. And then like now,
I certainly had a lot of fun when we went
to see them in twenty sixteen, but I think they've
they've very much settled into the like we're playing the hits,
we're an arena fun rock band, Like you're not going
to a Blank Way two show in twenty twenty one
(52:30):
for like, you know, a great life changing live show,
which I think is fine. Like I don't think there
was anything wrong with them being that today because I personally,
I literally enjoyed it. I had a great time seeing
them in twenty sixteen, but was so good, right, It's
true and we were very drunk, but.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
No memory of that part of it.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
There's a show on YouTube from two thousand and four
on this tour from camp in New Jersey, and it's
like genuinely really fucking good like they if you go
a little further, like when they reunite in twenty ten
and twenty eleven and then the show's in twenty fourteen,
which are also on YouTube, I would say that Tom's
(53:16):
heart isn't in it, and his vocals are what I
would call a choice. He's just it's just not Yeah,
he's just kind of not there, which like Faren, he
clearly didn't want to be in the band at that
time anyway, And in two thousand and four, in this
show in Camden, it kind of feels like because the
band would break up so soon after this, there's this
(53:38):
like all the jokey banter feels really forced, like they
have to do it. But the music is amazing, and
like Tom's guitar tone is great, Mark can actually hit
all the notes of the songs he's singing, and like
there's this like tension between Mark and Tom where it
(53:58):
almost feels like they're trying to one up each other
on stage and Travis is there just kind of trying
to center them. Travis also, I think, is playing with
a broken foot because he's using his left foot to
use his kick drum, which is also really impressive, but
like you can hear Travis like kind of trying to
keep them in time with each other because they're trying
to outdo each other. But it creates this really amazing
(54:22):
live show, and like even the Blank Way, two songs
that I would call objectively bad songs, like all the
Small Things sound really good and it's just it's a
great show. It's on YouTube. Check it out. It's like
an hour and twenty minutes long, and it's one of
those things, like, man, it's another thing that we talked
about last year, especially with as relates to Jerry Finn,
(54:44):
like if they had been able to keep it together
and keep that energy and that tension going, like I
love Neighborhoods as a record, which I'm on record as saying,
but boy, I want I feel like there could have
been a really like cool, angry punk record in this
band that just never got made. Judging by these live shows.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Yeah, Like I think Tom would agree with you. And
part of his part of his reflection on box Car
was that he had a lot more He really enjoyed
playing those songs live more because it wasn't just like,
oh we got to get through the song, to get
to the next joke. It was people actually wanted to
hear the songs and hear the performances, and I think
(55:24):
that that bled over into Blink a little bit. That
was also the time where like Travis was doing like
insane drum solos every show too, which is always good,
all right, Jake. So I guess now is where we
can kind of just quickly touch on the influence of
this album, where where this kind of changes is not
only is can you hear more of this sound in
(55:45):
the music today, and particularly like the math rock and
Midwest emos kind of stuff of the twenty tens. Blink
opened a lot of doors for pop punk by being
such a massive success, and then by having success this
way as well, they showed that not only could you
be a pop punk band that's commercially viable, you could
then get a little more artistic, or push yourself or
(56:05):
go a little darker and still be successful. And I
think that the combination of those things as well as
just you know, the timing of this album being two
thousand and three versus the late nineties and it having
a little bit of a more mature approach to some
of the emotional aspects. That's maybe more of Blink's lasting
legacy on the actual music than just oh yeah, pop
(56:28):
punk can be really can make you really rich for
a little bit here.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yeah, And it's kind of been accepted, I think since
this album came out. In a retrospective, The Los Angeles
Times said the album was the band's underrated master work.
Barker wrote in his book, it has a little bit
of everything. We've entered far enough outside our genre to
make ourselves happy, but not so far that we offended
our fan base. It was a perfect happy medium, and
(56:55):
it's the Blink album Mark Tom and I are most
proud of, and like clearly the fan base has embraced it.
Like even today with Skiba, they still open their shows
with feeling this. They still play a bunch from it.
Before they broke up. In twenty thirteen, they played a
two tenth anniversary shows in LA playing the album in full,
which sold out in thirty two seconds. On Radio dot Com,
(57:19):
John Bilstein called the album a masterpiece and wrote Untitled
was the band's most concise break from the pop punk
formula and a catalyst for the wave of pierced hearts
stuck to sleeves with tears and eyeliner emo outfits that
rose to popularity in its wake, sons the potty humor
of course, including but not limited to Follow Up Boy,
My Chemical Romance, and Panic at the Disco. And I
(57:42):
feel like, while this album gets a lot of credit
for what it's influenced today, I don't think it gets
enough credit for what it influenced with those three bands specifically.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah, for sure, I can definitely see that. All right, Jake,
We're running a little long here, so I guess we
had to rank some songs, right.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
Yeah, I think we do. I wrote down a ranking
yesterday I was making my notes, and I've already changed
my mind on them.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
Oh yeah, I've changed my mind so many times. And yeah,
this is These rankings will be the rankings for like
eight seconds, and then I'll change it again. All right,
what do you have at the top as of this second?
Speaker 2 (58:18):
I have all of this as my favorite song on
the record, then obvious, and then I cannot decide between
Stockholm Syndrome, Violence or Always as my third spot.
Speaker 1 (58:29):
Yeah, so those make up six of my top seven.
Went as far as seven go would be the other
one that's in the mix. There I had Violence, Obvious
and Down as a top three, and then all of
this at four. Just to rank it out a little bit.
We both have Obvious at two. Would that make it
then the logical pick for the mixtape?
Speaker 2 (58:52):
I think so, And I think it also speaks to
sort of what we were talking about today, which I
think is good.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
Yeah, you get head over to Patreon dot slash Columbia
house Party and the entire community in the discord on
social and over at patreon dot com slash Columbia house Party.
Thank you for continuing to do that. If you don't
want to do that, at least give us the old
rate subscribe review. Say nice things about Jake. He did
such a good job with this episode and also doing
(59:19):
a good job with this episode where we had a
lot of songs kewed up and ran long, so surely
he's gonna have a lot of editing work to do.
Thank you, per Dylan. As always, please try the fish. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:00:14):
I
Get Ready for podcast I got no regret. Right now,
the air is so cold and null. Let me go
in a room. I want to turn on the latest
episode of Columbia House Party. Jake, what's up, man?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I'm really happy you did the get Ready for podcasts.
That's great stuff. This is what people have come to
expect from us.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Look, I'm doing asmr over on my Raptors podcast. I'm
doing weird like nineteen fifties Pa work over on this one.
It's good. I speak exactly exactly what the raptor me
doing A half committing to doing bits and doing them
not that well.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Look, you know it's the only thing better than half
committing to doing bits is full committing to doing bits.
I meant to say it the other way around. I
had to say, I think better than full committing is
half committing.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yes, you were of the mind that you know, while
the dogma is that you can't half ask two things
and you should full ass one thing. You are happy
to partial ass several things.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Quarter asked two things. Who's gonna stop you?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
There you go, Jake, What do you have for us today?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So today I'm gonna take you back to two thousand
and three I was on vacation with my parents as
I was a child, and I always like to put
music together, like before a vacation trip. It was always like,
let's get a bunch of music to listen to for
the car rides. And I didn't listen to blink Witty
(01:53):
Too in a long time at this point, of course,
a long time back then is like two years. And
so I popped the CD in. I was like, okay,
I'll give it a try, and then I got really
like self conscious listening to it. So I was like,
wait a minute, does the new blink Way two CD
actually rule? And it turns out that young Jake was right.
(02:14):
The new blink Way Too CD did rule. And that's
what we're talking about today. We're talking about I don't
know whether it's called self titled or untitled. Frankly, I
don't want to know, but we're talking today about blink
Way two's two thousand and three self slash untitled.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Six bottles went down the train, one hours wasted time.
I'd ask if you feel the same, still pushing that
chance to try your breath in this cool room, chill
wong hear the both side to side you speaking timestamps
still and he's shining.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Walk right on by.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
You at me forever. I buy you out, you come forever,
like buy you out.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
You have it.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
My FI.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You don't get very So to give you an idea
of just how rooted in this podcast, Blink is. You know,
we talked on bonus episodes about this podcast origin story
(04:07):
and how one of the first shows Jake and I
went to was us getting quite drunk at one of
the first Blink shows with Matt Skiba. It goes beyond
that right before we came on here to record this.
And this won't date it because there's no way you're
going to remember at which point Travis Barker posted this.
But Travis Barker does the same thing I do, and
(04:29):
he screenshots what song he's listening to on his phone
and posted in his Instagram story, even though unlike the
Spotify embds, you can't click through to it. He just
wants you to know what he's listening to, and he's
listening to the Postal Service. So Travis Barker, God, I
hope you're hearing this come on the podcast is. I
am shocked that at this point, with how much work
(04:49):
he's doing with Machine Ga Kelly, and just outside of
the pop punk sphere in general. The songs he posts
are so still in the Columbia House Pardy Wheelhouse. Travis
still has elite taste.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It's because everyone forgets the Travis is SKA. I pushed
behind the curtain a little bit. I pushed real hard
for one of the Blink episodes this year to be
the Aquabats and Blake said no, But I think Travis, Travis,
if you're listening, come on the pod and talk about
the Aquabats.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
I didn't say no, I just said.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Can imagine. Can you imagine if like we got Travis Barker,
like literally Travis Barker and we made to talk about
We didn't talk about the fucking Aquabats.
Speaker 6 (05:31):
Man.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
But Travis is the one who first pushed Tom toward
this different sound with this album, because it was It
wasn't like Tom came up in the post hardcore scene
and really liked it. It was Travis listening to all
this stuff and Tom being like, Hey, what is that ship?
That shit rules? And then Tom deciding he wanted to
(05:52):
go down this for the road. Jake, you teed up
your connection to this a little bit. On on the
family road trip and you know, instantly liking this. I
was on the other side of this where in high
school at the time. I remember being a little bit disappointed,
expecting a more proper Blink pop punk album. And even
though I'd enjoyed Boxcar Racer, which came out between take
(06:14):
Off Your Pants a Jacket and the untitled you know,
I as just like a teenage Blink fan wanted more
like American pie style Blink. Now I see it in
retrospect as such a first of all logical artistic extension
of what they'd been. And now, you know, we talked
about this when we did take Off Your Pants to
Jacket and we ranked Blink albums at the end. It's
(06:36):
my favorite Blink album, both by merit and in terms
of it's just the most interesting with respect to the
band's history, their growth and really, you know, the what
ifs of what if they kind of stuck down this
road and stuck together beyond this? What could what could
have been? And that's something we talked a lot about,
you know, and take Off Your Pants a Jacket and
plus forty four. I'm sure it'll come up again, But yeah, Jake,
(06:57):
I was on the wrong side of history initially, but
I come around to agreeing with you that this is
the Blink album that holds up the best and is
the most interesting. Beyond that you wanted to do this
one last year when we got here. Why is this
one so fascinating for you?
Speaker 2 (07:12):
I mean a lot of the same reasons that you
just point out, Like it's by far and like not
even close. It's my favorite of the Blink albums. I
also think like it is the best of them. I
know we don't like to toss around sort of best
versus favorite so much, but I think this is one
(07:34):
of those sort of occurrences where I feel comfortable doing so.
I also think it's just I think it's really interesting,
both for reasons we talked about last year and for
reasons we were going to talk about today, especially in
regards to the dynamic between Mark and Tom and sort
of last year we talked a lot about whether or
not they need each other to make their best work,
(07:57):
in which I think we both agree that they do.
But I think this album's really interesting, and especially sort
of what came just after this album, both as a
live band and sort of where they would go in
their careers in that not only do I think they
need each other, but I think them having sort of
unspoken or maybe spoken tension between each other and trying
(08:20):
to one up each other really like pushes them to
do their best work. That's not so much on this
album itself, but more so on what happened around this
album and after this album came out, before they broke
up for the first time. And I think it's a
really interesting album from a band that I don't think
it's enough credit for being an interesting band, which is
(08:43):
also sort of the influence to making this album in
the first place. And I think this is an album
that hugely influenced all of pop punk and emo in
ways it does get credit for today, but maybe wasn't
sort of a rest as much at the time because
of what pop punk and emo were in two thousand
(09:04):
and three.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, I feel like the general reception to it initially
was my response to it, which was, where are my
dick and fart jokes?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
And I D play this.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
I can't play this at a kegger. So we're going
to talk about that. We're going to dive into the
album and the kind of sonic change for Blink one
A two and a little later, we're going to talk
about that influence that kind of sticks around every band
that's even relatively pop punk ad Jason owes at least
a little something to the Blank one A two style
bands that made it more commercially viable. But this is
(09:36):
the album I think where you start to where you
can still trace, you know, in the sound and in
the spirit, you can still trace some of today's bands
back to Blink. We're going to talk about the untitled
Blink one A two album after this.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Take Off Your Pants and Jacket hit number one in
two thousand and one and broke the band to a
new level of stardom, especially the two singles, which were
First Date and The Rock Show. Tom told music Radar
that he felt limited by the band's record label and
also the band itself, which is what caused him to
strike out and do the Box Carracer project in the
first place. He said, I was getting kind of bummed
(10:24):
out in the studio with Blink. It's probably my fault
because I never said it, but I just wanted to
get in there and try things out, but you feel
like you can't because the band is paying for studio time.
It's almost like you have a canvas and all these paints,
but somebody says, no, don't touch those. Now we've got
to get the blue on the canvas. And you say,
but there's red, and they say, no, get the blue done.
Maybe they'll be time for red later. The band had
(10:45):
a tour scheduled for the fall of two thousand and one,
which was canceled by nine to eleven, and then they
canceled the tour a second time after DeLong herniated a
disc in his back, and that time off led to
his box Car Racer project. But we will discuss that
more next week. Mark Hoppis said in a Reddit ama
that he felt hurt by his lack of inclusion with
box Car. He also told Krang in two thousand and three,
(11:08):
at the end of two thousand and one, it felt
like Blink Oney too had broken up. It wasn't spoken about,
but it felt over. After this, Travis Barker would go
on to play with The Transplants two thousand and two.
Blink did play the Pop Disaster Tour that year with
Green Day, but they were sort of going in their
own little directions.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
By the way, you want to talk about potential episodes
for a third Blink Ark with Blink adjacencies. If you're
going to do aquabats and force that in there and
lose half our audience, I'm going to come in and
lose the rest of the audience with the transplants episode.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
You're not only going to lose the rest of the audience,
You're me.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah, Diamonds and Guns, baby boy, I.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Don't like that album. In that interview with Kerrang, Mark
Hoppus also said that the two thousand and two tour
was an uncomfortable time in the band, but said that
the band had hundreds of discussions about their careers and
everything and seemingly moved on. In Travis bar Worker's autobiography,
Can I Say, he said that he felt the dynamics
and the band had changed due to Hoppus and DeLong
(12:06):
getting married, saying blank way two were no longer just
three inseparable guys who were touring together, and he also
said that his dating Shan a Moechler at the time,
and their tabloid attention caused a lot of awkwardness in
the group.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
To be clear, Mark and Tom got married to their partners,
not to each other. There was a yes of a
clear sentence structure. There just to be they would divorce eventually,
but they weren't actually married to each other.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That's very true. That's a good note Blake. Talking to
MTV in two thousand and two regarding making their next album,
Mark Hoppus said that we always had these ideas for
things we wanted to do, but we never spent time
in the studio to explore them. This time, we're going
to the studio with a bunch of new approaches, and
I think this will be one of those albums that
(12:52):
people will either love or throw in the trash and
spit on. We want to do something really dynamic. We
wanted to try different effects in the studio, try different instruments,
try different sounds, different arrangements on songs. Before we got
one guitar sound that we changed a little bit through
the record. This time we want to try a whole
different setup for each song. And in Joe Schumann's book
(13:13):
Blink One, Tity Two, The Band, The Breakdown and the Return,
assistant engineer for this record, Sam Bucas said once the
door was opened by Tom and Travis with Boxcar, Mark
started to be more on board with that concept. He
was also more flexible, and the next Blink album was
able to be a pretty big departure from the previous two,
which I think is kind of an interesting way to
(13:33):
look at it, especially from Mark's perspective. And I hadn't
really thought of it this way, even though obviously it's
what happened. But how the first three four depending on
what five, depending on how you count which blank albums
are actually albums or not, they are really simple albums,
(13:54):
like instrumentation. Why there's not like really keyboards even for over,
there's not even that many guitar over dubs.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
No, it's really just Travis is the only thing that's
playing like above, yeah, a basic station.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Right, Yeah. And I think we talked this last year,
like it's not a coincidence. The band sort of elevated
in terms of success once Travis joined the band to
make it a little more unique and interesting. But even like,
there's only so much Travis could do until they got
to this point to sort of they all brought new things,
which I think is kind of interesting for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And I know we have a bunch of music clips
that we want to play from this album. So I'm
just gonna I'm gonna jump ahead of you here and say,
you know, I think maybe it was a realization for
Mark two that like, not only could the band expand
a little bit more, but he could too. And obviously,
you know the dynamic has has been in at the
(14:51):
time to hear interviews and then in retrospect listening to
the music that you know, Tom needed Mark to rain
him in a little bit, and Mark needed Tom to
push him outside of his comfort zone a little uh.
And I think you know one of the earlier successes
that they had in going down this road was the
song Go, which does give Mark a little bit of
a little bit of chance to kind of find his
group in this sound.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
How we of the g probatunity look aside the back
in eighty three, I.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Ready the car, said the man side, So the look
up read my mother's side down dow dow Dow.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Love getting the car.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And that's drive away. She said, I'm sorry, Mark, but
there's a wet star came upon her and broke back inside.
Hit a record hot and the dow dow Dow got yeah.
(16:16):
I completely agree with that, and I think I chose
Go both as is the first song we were going
to talk about today from a chronological perspective, but also,
even though it comes near the end of the record,
probably It and Feeling This are the songs that feel
most in place with sort of the take off your
pants era of Blink, which I think is a good
(16:37):
place to start. That was also the first song that
they would debut from this record. They played a few
shows in early two thousand and three in the summer
to test to not really test, I can't really say
road test stuff. They only played a couple songs from
this record, but that was the first one which they
played at their first show the year at a festival
in Sarnia, Ontario. Wow, so there you go.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Was it Beyfest?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
It was Bayfest Rogers Sarnia Bayfest in July two.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I went to Bayfest. I think I've shared this on
the pod before. I went to Bayfest with my dad
and brothers the year that Nickelback had won.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
That's right. Well, that's where they premiered Go, which is
kind of funny. I guess sad.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I wasn't there for that one. All I got to
hear was how You Remind Me or whatever. The Nickelback
song was off the first album.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Ah, that's too bad. Oh bad Anyway, the band began
working on this record in January of two thousand and three.
They rented a luxury home in San Diego, planning to
record the entire album there. They had a different approach
to this record. Previously, they wrote and demoed songs in
the studio, one instrument a time, but for this album
(17:43):
they approached each song as a whole and as a band,
which is interesting considering how the next Blank record would
be recorded, but we'll talk about that a little later.
This is also the first time they felt they had
that freedom and time in the studio that Mark and
Tom were sort of alluding to in the press before
this record. Recently, Mark appeared on Jim Adkins of Jimmy
(18:03):
World's podcast Passed Through Frequencies, and he said, when we
first started out, obviously we couldn't afford studio times. We
had to have everything written and planned out before we
went into the studio. We did that for Cheshure Cat
Dude Ranch, pretty much Enemy of the State and Take
Off Your Pants and jacket. When we got the untitled record,
we were like, we don't have any songs written. We
just want to go into the studio and start throwing
(18:24):
ideas around and catching things and seeing what happens. Happus
says that it was a great education for the three
of us. We really spent time breaking songs down, making
things weird, and agonizing over every single element of a song.
They would stay in that house in San Diego until
April two thousand and three, when the owners eventually kicked
them out. They would then move to Rolling Thunder Studios
(18:46):
before leaving for the summer tour, the first up of
which was the aforementioned Bayfest. Travis also left the band
in the spring to go tour at the Transplants, but
he left them a bunch of drum tracks for them
to use while he was gone.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, this comes up. This is gonna come up every
time we do a Blink episode or a Blink Relate episode.
Is that like Travis just comes in and does all
his parts in like a day or two while everyone else,
Like every project Travis is in, He's like, no, I
get it, here's the drums. It's it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
I'm sure it wasn't like this, but I have. It
makes a really funny image in my brain of Mark
and Tom like agonizing over every minute detail of this record,
which they did, and then Travis being like, yeah, I
did the drums in like three hours.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Here you go, and then just bounce out to go
to Yeah. The rest of this project is you guys
trying to keep catch up to me. So I'm just
going to drop the drums here and we'll go with it.
One of the things I find interesting, and maybe you
have some quotes about this or or just a reflection,
is this was the last album that Blink did with
Jerry Finn. But it's really interesting to me that they
(19:50):
were able to grow with Finn from Enema to take
Off your Pants a Jacket to box car to this.
In doing these episodes and talking to to friends in
the industry, it really seems like usually when you're trying
to make that jump and push yourself out of your
comfort zone, that's the time when a band might look
to change up who's producing and mixing with them, because
(20:10):
you get a different perspective, you get someone who's going
to challenge you differently. And I think it's you know,
it's obviously these this string of records they did with
Finn were so immensely successful. Obviously Finn has a you know,
such a lengthy list of great stuff he's worked one,
but it's a real testament to the dynamic between Finn
and the band and the trust that was there between
(20:31):
them to be able to try something this different with
the same producer and not just like there's almost no
point in this album where they fall back into old
Blink habits.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah, And I think that's a credit to Finn, And
like how Finn's career sort of went, Like I don't
think it's a stretch to credit Jerry Finn with like
inventing or helping to invent the modern form of pop
punkin email, Like you just look at his discography and
how he went from starting with like Matthew Sweet and
Color Me Bad and then eventually started working with Penny
(21:06):
Wise and Rancid and Weezer and Green Day and Blink
and Alkaline Trio at MxPx and Smoking Popes and Rancid
and the Offspring. Like he just his hands are all
over this entire genre. And I think tracking his evolution
through the evolution of Blink is a good way to
(21:26):
track the evolution of the genre as well. And I
think a lot of that is credited to Finn.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Yeah, and I know Finn only has production credits on
a few of the songs were mixing, including Feeling This,
which I guess they had some trouble finishing.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
Right Yeah. In that podcast with Jim Adkins, Mark said
that Feeling This was all was had, they had trouble
ending it, and it also was sort of part of
their evolution and education in the studio, Mark said that
the first single off of the record is a song
called Feeling This. At the end, this six part harmony
with different calls and responses, that was just a total
(22:03):
happy accident in the studio where we were getting to
the end of the song and composing it and trying
to figure it out the different sections and stuff. Our
engineer accidentally automated a fade and left off the vocals,
so all the music faded out and the vocals were
still doing the harmony thing, and we were like, that's
really cool. Let's expand on that. That could also be
why the band stayed in the studio for three months
(22:25):
longer than planned. This album ended up costing a million
dollars just to make, which Hoppus told Adkins is just
ridiculous now, but that is also the benefit of recording
with someone like Travis Barker, as we were sort of
alluding to before. In that Kerrang interview in two thousand
and three, Mark Hoppus said that Travis was like, don't
(22:47):
think of this as the next blank Whatity two record.
Think of this as the first blank Whitey two record.
So we had this mindset that we weren't going to
second guess ourselves or worry if people were going to
accept it or if it sounds like blank whitey too.
If it was an idea that we wanted to pursue,
we were gonna pursue it. And we tried out all
these different ideas and it was like a musical laboratory.
And I think that Travis is the right guy. Like
(23:10):
obviously there's lots of sort of electronic drum fills on
this record, even just the intro drums on Feeling this
with the effects on them is different than any other
Blink song. And when we talked last year about sort
of Travis's hip hop career and aspirations, him incorporating that
into this record, I think really is what started to
(23:33):
push it. Sort of. I don't know if this is
what started them experimenting the studio, but it wouldn't surprise
me if it was.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, for sure, and it almost comes off where like
instead of coming at it from a hip hop background.
And obviously there are a few different influences pulling them here,
like Tom's post hardcore. Obviously some cure influences, but it
almost gives like some on some of these songs, Travis
almost has like a jazz vibe to his produssion. Now
you made the bold decision to not put a clip
of Feeling This or I Miss You into our plan here.
(24:03):
Feeling This, by the way, which was not only the
lead singer but also released on the Madden in two
thousand and four soundtrack under the title Action Action, which
was a big a big twist when you got the
actual album, or sorry, even before the album when Feeling
This got released as a single under the name Feeling This.
In between Feeling This and I Miss You, though, is
a song that is perhaps a statement of intense Jake,
(24:28):
as you framed it, this is obvious.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Again I think you usually again before we give up
and move on empty tenor we starm where we have
it hold on and.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
One of my favorite tracks on the album, Jake, take
us into more of what you mean by this being
a statement of intents of sorts because it did. It
is sandwiched between the two really big singles, uh to
start off the album, and you know how I feel
about album structure and that you bat your best player second.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah, I meant to the same intent because I feel like,
sort of as I said earlier, feeling this. I like
feeling this fine. The reason I didn't put Feeling This
or I Miss You in this episode is because everyone
knows those songs are right. If you're listening to this
like it's it's Blink. That's not like some obscure band,
it's like, check out their single, especially for I Miss You.
But we'll talk about that one in a minute. I've
(26:08):
said obvious to statement intent because it is track two
and feeling this to me, even though there is more
sort of studio experimentation in the song, I don't think
it's that far off from the previous Blink sound like
maybe it's a logical next step, but it's not as
far experimentation as they would go on this record.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Right like it would be it would be out of
place on Dude Ranch, but not too out of place
on take Off Your Pants.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
A Jacket exactly. And then with Obvious coming in right after,
which is a completely different sound for the band. I
think it's sort of like a indication that they weren't
your Papa's blank went too, so to speak. I also
think Obvious is kind of a funny song for me
because it's also one of my favorite songs on the album.
Yet I also think it sounds exactly like Boxcar Racer,
(26:55):
which I don't really like. Uh So, I think that's odd,
but we'll talk with that next week.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Anyway, Obvious was sort of, as I said, their statement
of intent to make in their mature record. In quotes
in the liner notes of the album, Travis wrote that
Obvious was a really dark song on the album. We
were thinking failure meets led Zeppelin meets the Police. I
love the verses in this song. And then regarding this
(27:22):
notion that they were making their mature record, the band
actually actively fought against that. Tom DeLong told Kerrang the
worst thing in the world that could happen is people
think we're trying to make some big, bold statement. That's
why we try to say it's not self titled. It's
just untitled. We don't want to label it with anything.
We didn't want to label it with a joke title
(27:42):
that people might expect. We didn't want to label it
with some serious phrase that the whole record would have
to relate to. We left it untitled so it would
speak for itself. And Happus followed that up, talking to
Spin saying, when we did the untitled record, we didn't
feel like putting joke stuff on it, so we didn't.
It wasn't really a deliberation or real introspective thing, like
are we going to joke on this one? Are we
(28:03):
not going to joke on this one? We just didn't
feel like it on this one, so we didn't. And
then DeLong furthered that up talking to Blender saying, some
of our fans were probably like, fuck, maybe they should
just stop joking so people can hear why I like
this band and I think this record is going to
help those kids out. And that was basically my attitude
to this record when it came out. I was kind
of like not that. I was like, you know, I
(28:26):
was moving on to real mature acts, like real big
fish at this time.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Look, I was just pivoting out of Disturbed. So even
take off your Pants a Jacket Era by two was
a very big maturing of my my palette coming off
of Down with the Sickness and stupefun I.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Think like it's funny in retrospect because of sort of
a lot of the SKA music I was listening to,
which like not all of it, like a lot of
it isn't what I would call mature music for two thousand.
I also, I was like fourteen or fifteen when this
came out, so you know, not doing my heavy maturing yet.
But I do remember thinking at the time, like I
(29:09):
am getting kind of tired with like the fuck of
Dogs songs and the like weird like their stage banter
I thought was getting really exacted, Like I always thought
the whole like whatever is like seventy minutes of stage
band wherever the fuck it is on the Mark, Tom
and Travis show. I was just like, I don't think
I need this in my life.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah, it's a lot. So there is I mean, the maturing,
Like they can say that they didn't want to do
this more mature album, but I definitely think there's a
realization here that like, hey, we're in our thirties and
we're married now, and yeah, obviously it's still it's still
a very angsty album, and it still does have the
odd line that is not jokey, but just like okay,
(29:49):
you're songwriting. It hasn't gone all the way there yet,
but I do think that there's like they did try
to make that pivot, and I think they wrote with
a more like broadly appeal emotionality and empathy where it's like,
you know, yes, their first couple albums were okay, your
your high school love issues and then your college love issues,
and this one maybe isn't even about you know, love
(30:11):
issues in as many places as it is just kind
of the world generally. I wouldn't go so far as
to say it's, you know, a concept album about the
end of the world, like like someone thinks Boxcar Racer is.
But you know, I do think that that maturity is there,
and I think, you know that I don't want to
look we all would have grown up and our music
(30:33):
tastes would have changed. But so I don't want to
say that like Blink kind of dragged some of its
fans with them, whereas otherwise there could have been a
level of arrested development had they, you know, put out
the same kind of thing again. But Jake, if it
helped pull you out of ska. Then it's it was
obviously for the best because you had a little bit
of SKA home syndrome there, did you not? Christ Yeah, sorry, man,
(30:57):
I had no way to work if I seen that
song that this is Stockholm syndrome. I'm sorry, rough place.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
Job, stock can't.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Stop, lacks, can't.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Shock, skips show tell us.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
That an all time drumming on the steering wheel at
a red light song?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
For sure. Yeah, I think that song is I don't
want to call any of this music weird or experimental
because it's not. But it is for Blink at the time.
But I think that Sockham Syndrome to me is sort
of the most different I guess song on this record
right for Blink and where they were. It's also funny
(33:07):
to me that they had this whole thing about we
didn't want to make a statement, We don't want to
be named as our mature record. But the way Tom
talks about his own music always it's impossible to like
divorce the two like. He describes this song as a
beginning with an elderly woman reciting a letter Hoppus's grandfather
(33:29):
wrote his wife while fighting in World War two real, sincere,
genuine letters from the worst war in history. So we
created this really sad soundtrack beyond the letters, and then
it goes into the most aggressive punk rock anthem you've
ever heard. And like, I love Tom's so easy to
make fun of, and like, I get it, but I
love listening to Tom DeLong talk about himself because it's
(33:52):
the funniest thing in the world to me, and it's
like usually also kind of accurate, even like we should
all have the confidence of Tom Along talking about his
own music. Is I think, how I look at it.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Yeah, I would, I would love that kind of confidence.
And look, I mean he was The weird thing about
it is is that, like you know, he's not the
either he's not the most self aware of how he
comes off in interviews or he just doesn't care. But
you go back and like you prep for an episode
like this, and you prep for an episode like box
Car Racer, and Tom was right, like he could like
(34:24):
history looks good on the things Tom was saying about
changing their sound and pushing themselves as artists and stuff.
And you know whether whether or not he's dialing up
kind of the rhetoric around those changes a little too
high because still blinkrent a two album. Like he was
right and this is a big step forward for them
and it is better, and so like we can joke
(34:46):
and it's easy to make fun and it's really easy
to pick on Tom for you know, the modern day
UFO stuff. But he was right about that too, So yeah,
that's true that he he uh.
Speaker 5 (34:56):
This is.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Tom DeLong History's greatest here a couple of years from
now when the Aliens take over and start going back
to listen to our old music and the untitled album
and boxcar stand out above the rest. Tom was right.
That's that's a big takeaway here.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I don't mean to keep teasing later moments in the episode,
but there's an all time Tom talking about his own
work quote coming up in a yeahs.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Before we get to that, we should probably talk about
I Miss You, which you kind of intentionally decided not
to put here because everyone knows I Miss You obviously.
It's kind of become this like that song is almost
like we got the mailbag question early on in the
Patreon Bonus episodes, like what do you think people think
(35:41):
of when they hear the word emo and don't really
know what it is? And it's like it's it's the
aesthetic of that video and like Tom's Tom voice, yea,
even though that's a good song and obviously again this
album is is good, and like our answers for that
were like something corporate and simple plan like it's not
blank Winny too, but that's kind of what I Miss You.
It was just like it's pretty ubiquitous, and instead, I
(36:06):
know you wanted to talk about the Cure influence here,
which is obvious in that video is aesthetic and then
of course much more direct on a song later in
the album.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, Like I agree with you. I think if someone
said what is emo, it's Tom with his bangs over
his face singing the voice inside my head verse. But
I do think I Miss You is an interesting song,
even if I don't like it all that much, just
because I do think it represents such a big step
forward for them as a band and also influences the
next song we're going to talk about about I Miss You.
(36:38):
Tom said that I'm a really big fan of the
Cure and one day i was listening to the song
the love Cats, and I love the idea of using
a stand up bass guitar in jazz brushes. So what
we end up doing was writing a song that was
all acoustic. Once the lyrics starts singing about a spider
eating the insides of a bug. I think people take
that and go, maybe it's not about their families, and
it talks about celebrating Halloween on Christmas and all these
(36:59):
different dark kind of things. The song's more about the
vulnerability and the kind of heart wrenching pain you feel
when you're in love and when you're a guy and
you're trying to tell a girl don't waste your time
coming and talk to me, because in my head, at
least you probably already gave up on me a long
time ago, which is just a boy Tom. I don't
know about that I got He's right, that is when
(37:19):
we were when I was fifteen, or that song, that's
what it is. But like Wolf anyway, the song I
want to talk about is a song that I cannot
believe exists for a lot of reasons, and that song,
both instrumentally and musically, and for the fact that who
literally sings on the song should not exist on a
blank twenty two record anyway. The song I'm gonna talk
(37:41):
about is all of this, which features literally Robert Smith
on literally Robert Smith.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
This side side of my head. I'll just go show
I mean I love changes me oh again when you.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
For this want to change just said to.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
Tell the world's into I know that my wop.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
But I'm always wanting.
Speaker 6 (38:21):
Giuse me, only come on and use me, us me,
come use me, Which is all I mean.
Speaker 4 (38:40):
That is all I dream, which is all I always wanted,
Which is all I mean, is all dream, which is
all I always wanted.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
A way to fill, to shake the sky, and another
night with always wanting you, another night with her always want.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
H Oh, that's a great track.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
It's a great song, one of like I think, genuinely
one of my favorite Blankway two songs. And also literally
Robert Smith is on it, which is insane to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
The Cure influence all over for a couple of songs
on this one, but specifically that one. All of this.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Ah yeah. So this song came about by Hoppus said
explained that we're all huge fans of the Cure. Having
Robert Smith collaborate on a track is a total dream
come true for us. We recorded the song in a
rather unconventional manner. Travis recorded the kick and snare together,
and then went back and overdubbed the high hat, then
overdubbed the ride symbol, then overdubbed the ribbon crasher. Tom
(40:26):
went in and recorded the acoustic guitars and the electrics.
Then I went in and recorded the bass using a
new discovery for this album, which is a nineteen sixty
three Fender Base six. It's exactly like guitar and that
it has six strings, but it's tuned an octave lower.
It wasn't amplified. We plugged it directly into the board.
Then Roger came in and added the keyboards. Tom sang
lead on the first two lines for the chorus, and
(40:48):
then we sent that track over to Robert in England.
He recorded his vocals there and sent the track back
to us. We added in the drum fills and harmonies
and added mellotron. The song was recorded in four different
studios on two different concent and and it's one of
the best on the record. Smith recorded his parts in England,
as Mark said, but he also gave the group some
advice because they were worried about this song. Both I
(41:10):
think of the fact that they were literally asking Robert
Smith to be on their song, and we know how
huge Cure fans they are, especially Mark considering half of
fucking California's about it.
Speaker 3 (41:20):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
And he also sent them back advice because they I
guess they had kind of included saying like we were
nervous about what a non humor Blink twenty two album
would be and how they received. DeLong told Billboard it
was a dream come true. We sent them the music
to him in England of what was on the record,
and I didn't think he would be interested in contributing,
only because who knew what his perception was of our
(41:43):
band in the past. But what he said was, nobody
knows what kind of songs you're going to write in
the future, and nobody knows the full potential of any band.
And I really like the music you sent me, and
he really wanted to do it, and it was just amazing.
I also think all this is really interesting, just briefly
in that I think it sounds a lot like a
lot of the music The Cure would make for their
(42:04):
record that came out in two thousand and four, which
is also a self titled record. I'm not going to
say that Blank waited to influence the Cure's next album,
but it'll give to that. It does sound very similar
to a couple songs on that record, which I really like.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
But if there's anyone who knows how to navigate getting
a little tired of what your sound was or what
expectations were for you and speaking it effectively right your
new desires that, you know, the advice from Robert Smith
is probably pretty helpful. We are not wrapping the album
here because, like this album, there is one more single
(42:40):
to discuss that comes just a little later. So we're
going to talk about that last single and the lasting
influence of this album on the Cure and a bunch
more bands after this. All right, Jake, So this album
(43:07):
came out I sometimes mix it up with when Madden
came out, which was the summer of two thousand and three.
Feeling This then came out in October two thousand and three,
the album dropped in mid November, and then a whole
year later this end, and this has to be at
the end of the run where albums could release singles
over the course of a whole year without kind of
(43:28):
losing you know, We've done some albums when we go
back to the nineties on this episode or even the
early two thousands, and there's like six singles spread out
over two years. This has to be toward the end
of where you could pull that off. But blank win
A to two, snuck one more singles. So when I
feeling this, I miss you Down and then six months
after Down, and a year after the album had been released,
(43:50):
hit us with one more called Always Did You Come Across?
Speaker 5 (43:54):
Why?
Speaker 1 (43:55):
This was like way later? What the goal was here
with the super late single?
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Like just why was it so long? Between three and
four they were just pumping them out. They actually wanted
to have five singles on this record. They considered putting
out all of this as the fifth single.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
Because of band tension and breaking up and everything that
was going on near the end of two thousand and
four or two thousand and five of the band, it
just never came to fruition. DeLong told MTV when Always
came out, he said, it's the first time we've ever
had four singles. This album is like the little engine
that could. We even talked about a fifth single. We've
never done this before. It is kind of weird that
(44:33):
we're still around. It's kind of a love song. It's
kind of got an eighties thing. It's not a dance song,
but if you were to dance to it, you'd look
like you were writ out of nineteen eighty five. Again,
I love how Tom DeLong talks and the quote that
I was alluding to earlier that as an all time
Tom DeLong talking about his own music quote about the
song Always, which I really like. But keep in mind
it is the Blink one D two song Always. Tom
(44:55):
told MTV News it's going to change people's lives and
might actually change the world forever.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
All right, anyway, before we comment on that this is
the song Always, I've been.
Speaker 3 (45:20):
Here before a few times and quite aware you're dying.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
And your hands good movies, and I'll take you if
you me.
Speaker 5 (45:47):
Dying.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
This is another instance of Tom also when explaining the song,
just like basically saying the lyrics the song is about
wanting to hold the chick, kiss sir in touch and
taster and feeler and all these great adjectives. I agree
with his part of that interview where he says it's
a spectacular song. I do really like that song. Don't
know though, that it changed the world forever.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
I like that he's saying it's going to change people's lives.
When the album had been out for a year, like
people had heard the song already, the album sold really well.
I do really like that song. I think it's one
of my favorite songs on this album, and I think
it's one of their one. Like Blink or Not a
band I would say are a great singles band other
(47:36):
than the Dude Ranch singles. I would say their singles
are actively their worst songs, but not that one. I
think that one's a great song and a great single.
Joe Schuman in his book also point out the guitar
riff is very similar to the Only One song Another Girl,
Another Planet, which Blink would actually cover, and Schuman also
called it the thickest Blink track of all time. Consequence
(47:57):
of Sound in twenty fifteen would say it's the fifth
best Blink song and called it by far and away,
the best song on Untitled.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
It's also one of I guess, you know, to kind
of cap up that talk about the end of the
era where you could spread singles out that long. It
didn't chart very well, but it was a huge success
as a music video. If you remember that like three
panel music video where everything was just out of up
to today has almost eighty six million YouTube views. There
(48:28):
you go pretty successful.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
So anyway, eventually this album came out. The band they
had a little trouble meeting their deadline because they were
so obsessive over every little detail. DeLong said. The final
days of mixing were crazy stressful, and he told MTV
that they had literally hours to turn in the album
to have it come out on time. The final mixes
(48:51):
for the album were still being judged and worked on
by the band the literal night before the album was
sent to the pressing plant. So that's the kind of
thing how it was going. Came out on November eighteenth,
two thousand and three, and it was oh decently received.
It got four stars of Rolling Stone, five oft a
five from Spotnik, ninety one percent from Spin, an a
(49:13):
minus Entertainment Weekly, a favorable review in The av Club,
a four and a half out of five from All Press,
and a four to five from All Music. It has
a seventy one on Metacritic currently and was named Rolling
Stone's Best of two thousand and three list. I think
the reception for this album, they were kind of in
a no win situation either they were going to get
the like Blink trying really hard to mature thing, or
(49:37):
they were gonna get the where's the jokes thing? So
I kind of think they were on a no win,
which I kind of get. Regarding the more mature sound
that was actually positively received, Tim Nubound of Soulshine Magazine said,
Blink show that they can retain their infectious and endearing
qualities while recording music of a more thoughtful caliber, and
(50:00):
Katucci in The Village Voice compared it to Green Day's Warning,
saying that, let it be noted, however, that Warning searches
for subject matter, while Blank one two searches for meaning,
and I think that's an interesting comparison. Considering the next
year Green Day would release American Idiot. It sold well,
though debuted at number three on the Billboard two hundred,
selling three hundred and thirteen thousand copies in its first week.
(50:22):
It actually charted the highest in Canada, where it debuted
at number one, because we know what the fuck is up.
It was certified platinum in two thousand and four in
the States and to date has sold two point two
million copies in the United States and seven million worldwide.
It went double platinum in Canada and Australia and also
platinum in the UK. They would tour this album first
(50:45):
on the unfortunately named Dolla Bill Tour, but it was
named that way because they played small clubs and sold
tickets for one dollar. I'm only noting this tour because
the final date of that tour took place at the
Phoenix Concert Theater here in Toronto, and the opening band
was literally my Chemical Romance And seeing two thousand and
(51:06):
four MCR open for two thousand and four Blink at
the Phoenix would have been fucking awesome. So if anyone
is listening to this who was at that show, please
tweeted us and tell us about it, because I want
to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Yeah, and take us back there and let us be there.
Because the other thing with this album too, this is
kind of where they hit their stride as a live
show band too, where you know, Mark, Tom and Travis
show is what a Blink twenty to two show is like.
It's a lot of jokiness and they play the hits
and jake for your money. This is around the only
(51:39):
time that they were like an above average live band
in addition to just being a band that you love.
Speaker 2 (51:46):
Yeah, I'm a big live bootleg guy. In the high school,
I pretty much listened exclusively to Like Live and University
as well, So I love watching listening to live shows
on YouTube and shit now. And I think that my
theory with Blink and You're free to disagree is that
I don't think they've ever been a particularly good live band.
(52:09):
Like I find their Mark Tom and Travis era antics
kind of annoying, but that's just me. And then like now,
I certainly had a lot of fun when we went
to see them in twenty sixteen, but I think they've
they've very much settled into the like we're playing the hits,
we're an arena fun rock band, Like you're not going
to a Blank Way two show in twenty twenty one
(52:30):
for like, you know, a great life changing live show,
which I think is fine. Like I don't think there
was anything wrong with them being that today because I personally,
I literally enjoyed it. I had a great time seeing
them in twenty sixteen, but was so good, right, It's
true and we were very drunk, but.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
No memory of that part of it.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
There's a show on YouTube from two thousand and four
on this tour from camp in New Jersey, and it's
like genuinely really fucking good like they if you go
a little further, like when they reunite in twenty ten
and twenty eleven and then the show's in twenty fourteen,
which are also on YouTube, I would say that Tom's
(53:16):
heart isn't in it, and his vocals are what I
would call a choice. He's just it's just not Yeah,
he's just kind of not there, which like Faren, he
clearly didn't want to be in the band at that
time anyway, And in two thousand and four, in this
show in Camden, it kind of feels like because the
band would break up so soon after this, there's this
(53:38):
like all the jokey banter feels really forced, like they
have to do it. But the music is amazing, and
like Tom's guitar tone is great, Mark can actually hit
all the notes of the songs he's singing, and like
there's this like tension between Mark and Tom where it
(53:58):
almost feels like they're trying to one up each other
on stage and Travis is there just kind of trying
to center them. Travis also, I think, is playing with
a broken foot because he's using his left foot to
use his kick drum, which is also really impressive, but
like you can hear Travis like kind of trying to
keep them in time with each other because they're trying
to outdo each other. But it creates this really amazing
(54:22):
live show, and like even the Blank Way, two songs
that I would call objectively bad songs, like all the
Small Things sound really good and it's just it's a
great show. It's on YouTube. Check it out. It's like
an hour and twenty minutes long, and it's one of
those things, like, man, it's another thing that we talked
about last year, especially with as relates to Jerry Finn,
(54:44):
like if they had been able to keep it together
and keep that energy and that tension going, like I
love Neighborhoods as a record, which I'm on record as saying,
but boy, I want I feel like there could have
been a really like cool, angry punk record in this
band that just never got made. Judging by these live shows.
Speaker 1 (55:03):
Yeah, Like I think Tom would agree with you. And
part of his part of his reflection on box Car
was that he had a lot more He really enjoyed
playing those songs live more because it wasn't just like,
oh we got to get through the song, to get
to the next joke. It was people actually wanted to
hear the songs and hear the performances, and I think
(55:24):
that that bled over into Blink a little bit. That
was also the time where like Travis was doing like
insane drum solos every show too, which is always good,
all right, Jake. So I guess now is where we
can kind of just quickly touch on the influence of
this album, where where this kind of changes is not
only is can you hear more of this sound in
(55:45):
the music today, and particularly like the math rock and
Midwest emos kind of stuff of the twenty tens. Blink
opened a lot of doors for pop punk by being
such a massive success, and then by having success this
way as well, they showed that not only could you
be a pop punk band that's commercially viable, you could
then get a little more artistic, or push yourself or
(56:05):
go a little darker and still be successful. And I
think that the combination of those things as well as
just you know, the timing of this album being two
thousand and three versus the late nineties and it having
a little bit of a more mature approach to some
of the emotional aspects. That's maybe more of Blink's lasting
legacy on the actual music than just oh yeah, pop
(56:28):
punk can be really can make you really rich for
a little bit here.
Speaker 2 (56:33):
Yeah, And it's kind of been accepted, I think since
this album came out. In a retrospective, The Los Angeles
Times said the album was the band's underrated master work.
Barker wrote in his book, it has a little bit
of everything. We've entered far enough outside our genre to
make ourselves happy, but not so far that we offended
our fan base. It was a perfect happy medium, and
(56:55):
it's the Blink album Mark Tom and I are most
proud of, and like clearly the fan base has embraced it.
Like even today with Skiba, they still open their shows
with feeling this. They still play a bunch from it.
Before they broke up. In twenty thirteen, they played a
two tenth anniversary shows in LA playing the album in full,
which sold out in thirty two seconds. On Radio dot Com,
(57:19):
John Bilstein called the album a masterpiece and wrote Untitled
was the band's most concise break from the pop punk
formula and a catalyst for the wave of pierced hearts
stuck to sleeves with tears and eyeliner emo outfits that
rose to popularity in its wake, sons the potty humor
of course, including but not limited to Follow Up Boy,
My Chemical Romance, and Panic at the Disco. And I
(57:42):
feel like, while this album gets a lot of credit
for what it's influenced today, I don't think it gets
enough credit for what it influenced with those three bands specifically.
Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah, for sure, I can definitely see that. All right, Jake,
We're running a little long here, so I guess we
had to rank some songs, right.
Speaker 2 (58:00):
Yeah, I think we do. I wrote down a ranking
yesterday I was making my notes, and I've already changed
my mind on them.
Speaker 1 (58:05):
Oh yeah, I've changed my mind so many times. And yeah,
this is These rankings will be the rankings for like
eight seconds, and then I'll change it again. All right,
what do you have at the top as of this second?
Speaker 2 (58:18):
I have all of this as my favorite song on
the record, then obvious, and then I cannot decide between
Stockholm Syndrome, Violence or Always as my third spot.
Speaker 1 (58:29):
Yeah, so those make up six of my top seven.
Went as far as seven go would be the other
one that's in the mix. There I had Violence, Obvious
and Down as a top three, and then all of
this at four. Just to rank it out a little bit.
We both have Obvious at two. Would that make it
then the logical pick for the mixtape?
Speaker 2 (58:52):
I think so, And I think it also speaks to
sort of what we were talking about today, which I
think is good.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
Yeah, you get head over to Patreon dot slash Columbia
house Party and the entire community in the discord on
social and over at patreon dot com slash Columbia house Party.
Thank you for continuing to do that. If you don't
want to do that, at least give us the old
rate subscribe review. Say nice things about Jake. He did
such a good job with this episode and also doing
(59:19):
a good job with this episode where we had a
lot of songs kewed up and ran long, so surely
he's gonna have a lot of editing work to do.
Thank you, per Dylan. As always, please try the fish. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (01:00:14):
I
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!